By Roy Crane, edited by Rick Norwood (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-809-0 (HB)
Modern comics evolved from newspaper cartoons and comic strips, and these pictorial features were until relatively recently utterly ubiquitous and hugely popular with the public. They were also highly valued by publishers who used them as an irresistible sales weapon to guarantee and increase circulation and profits.
It’s virtually impossible for us to today to understand the overwhelming power of the comic strip in America (and the wider world) from the Great Depression to the end of World War II. With no television, broadcast radio barely established and movie shows at best a weekly treat for most folk, household entertainment was mostly derived from the comic sections of daily and especially Sunday Newspapers. They were the most common recreation for millions who were well served by a fantastic variety and incredible quality. Crucially this notionally free entertainment kept readers loyal to the papers that ran a family’s favourites…
From the very start humour was paramount; hence the terms “The Funnies” and “Comics”, and from these gag and stunt beginnings – a blend of silent movie slapstick, outrageous fantasy and raucous vaudeville shows – came a thoroughly entertaining mutant hybrid: Roy Crane’s Wash Tubbs.
Washington Tubbs II was a comedic gag-a-day strip not much different from family favourite Harold Teen (by Crane’s friend and contemporary Carl Ed). As first depicted on April 21st 1924, Tubbs was a diminutive, ambitious and bumbling young store clerk when the feature debuted, but after only three months Crane re-evaluated his little enterprise, making a few changes which would reshape the entire art form…
Having Wash run away to the circus (Crane did much the same in the name of research). the artist gradually moved the strip into mock-heroics, then through a period of gently boisterous action romps to become a full-blown, light-hearted, rip-roaring adventure series. It was the first of its kind and dictated the form for decades thereafter. Crane then sealed its immortality with the introduction of prototype he-man and ancestral moody swashbuckler Captain Easy in the landmark episode for 6th May, 1929.
As the yarns became more exotic and thrill-drenched, our globe-trotting little dynamo clearly needed a sidekick and sounding board. After a number of bright and breezy types were tried and discarded, Crane decided on one who could believably handle the combat side of things, and thus, in the middle of a European war in the fairytale kingdom of Kandelabra, Tubbs liberated a mysterious fellow American from a dungeon and history was made.
Before long the mismatched pair were inseparable; tried-and-true travelling companions hunting treasure, fighting thugs and rescuing startlingly comely damsels in distress…
The bluff, two-fisted, completely capable and utterly dependable, down-on-his-luck “Southern Gentleman” was something not seen before in comics: a taciturn, raw, square-jawed hunk played completely straight rather than the previously popular buffoon or music hall foil seen in such classic serials as Hairsbreadth Harry or Desperate Desmond.
Moreover, Crane’s seductively simple blend of cartoon exuberance and design was a far more accessible and powerful medium for action story-telling than the static illustrative style favoured by artists like Hal Foster who was just beginning to make waves on the new Tarzan Sunday page at this time.
Tubbs & Easy were as exotic and thrilling as the Ape Man but rowdily rattled along like the tempestuous Popeye, full of vim, vigour and vinegar, as attested to by a close look at the early work of the would-be cartoonists who followed the strip with avid intensity. Floyd Gottfredson, Milton Caniff, Jack Kirby, Will Eisner and especially young Joe Shuster were eager fans taking notes and following suit…
After a couple of abortive attempts starring his little hero, Crane eventually bowed to the inevitable and created a full colour Sunday page dedicated solely to his increasingly popular hero-for-hire. The Captain Easy feature debuted on 30th July 1933, in wild and woolly escapades set prior to his fateful meeting with Tubbs.
Both together and separately, reprinted exploits of these troubleshooters became staples of the earliest comic books – specifically The Funnies from October 1936 and The Comics, from March 1937 onwards.
With an entire page and vibrant colours to play with, Crane’s imagination ran wild and his fabulous visual concoctions achieved a timeless immediacy that made each page a unified piece of sequential art. The effect of these can be seen in so many strips since, especially the works of such near-contemporaries as Hergé and giants in waiting like Charles Schulz. They have all been collected in the 4-volume Roy Crane’s Captain Easy, Soldier of Fortune: The Complete Sunday Newspaper Strips. Sadly, no digital versions yet, but there’s always hope…
Those pages were a clearly as much of a joy to create as to read. In fact, the cited reason for Crane surrendering the Sunday strip to his assistant Les Turner in 1937 was NEA Syndicate’s abruptly and arbitrarily demanding that henceforward, all its strips be produced in a rigid panel-structure to facilitate being cut up and re-pasted as local editors dictated. Crane just walked away, concentrating on the daily feature. In 1943 he quit NEA completely, to create wartime aviator strip Buz Sawyer, and Turner became the able custodian of the heroes’ fate.
Wash Tubbs ran until January 10th 1988.
Before all that, however, Wash was the affable and undisputed star of a never-ending parade of riotous monochrome daily escapades and this superb hardback opens with two of them: part of a cherry-picked compilation of ten of the very best adventures of the bombastic buddies. Hopefully it will one day lead to another complete reprinting such as the 18-volume series covering the entirety of the Wash Tubbs run – 1934-1943 – that was published by NBM from 1987-1992. Good luck finding those…
Before the non-stop nonsense begins author and pre-eminent comic strip historian Ron Goulart details all you need to know about the tales in ‘A History of Lickety Whop’ whilst editor Rick Norwood provides further background information in his copiously illustrated Introduction, after which we’re plunged into astounding adventure on eponymous ‘Hurricane Isle’ (which originally ran from February 23rd to June 6th 1928)…
At this time Wash and fellow inveterate fortune-hunter Gozy Gallup are gloating over securing an ancient map which once belonged to the dread pirate Edward Teach… AKA Blackbeard!
As they research the infamous buccaneer and scrabble to find a ship to take them where they need to go, they are unaware that aggrieved enemy Brick Bane – the “Bandit King of Mexico” – is hard on their heels and hungry for vengeance. Stalking them as they journey from New Orleans to the Caribbean, he takes a nasty sea captain into his confidence and arranges for that sinister salt to hire out his ship to the treasure seekers. The skipper is unsavoury brute Bull Dawson: destined to become Tubbs’ – and later Easy’s – greatest, most implacable foe…
After travelling to the island with them Dawson, having already removed Bane, springs his trap and turns Wash and Gozy into enslaved labourers, digging with the crew to find the fabled horde. The lads soon rebel and escape into the jungle to search on their own, and also abortively attempt to steal Dawson’s ship.
The wily brute is too much for them, however, and even after the boys finally locate the loot, the malicious mariner reappears to take it from them. The sadistic swine is preparing to maroon them when Bane arrives with a ship full of Mexican bandits and a shooting war begins…
With bullets flying and bodies dropping, Wash and Gozy convince affable deckhand Samson to switch sides and the trio take off for civilisation with the treasure in the hold…
Money comes and goes pretty freely for these guys but by the time ‘Arabia’ (July 30th – December 12th 1928) opens, they are still pretty flush and opt for a luxurious Mediterranean cruise. Unfortunately Wash’s propensity for clumsy gaffes raises the ire of very nasty sheik Abdul Hoozit Hudson Bey and the affronted potentate swears vengeance when the ship docks in Tunis.
As if icing fate’s cake, when wandering through the bazaar Wash is glamoured by a pair of gorgeous eyes and inadvertently seals his doom by attempting to rescue a girl from a seraglio: Jada is not only a distressed damsel but Bey’s favourite wife…
Heeding the French authorities’ advice to leave town quickly, the lads take off on a camel caravan into the Sahara. They have no idea they are heading into cunning Bey’s trap…
The fact that Jada is the favourite of the incensed chieftain saves them temporarily, but when the sheik finally finds a way to surreptitiously assassinate them, she and her devoted slave Bola dash into the deep desert to save them, and the quartet strike out for safety and freedom together.
That trek dumps them in the clutches of Bey’s great rival Abdullah Bumfellah and leads to a tribal shooting war. Happily, Bola has been busy and found a Foreign Legion patrol to save the day.
And that’s when Jada drops her bombshell. She is actually a princess from a European principality, sold to Bey by her father’s Grand Vizier so that he could steal the throne. Now that she’s free again, Jada must return to liberate her poor people. Despite having to get back to America, Wash won’t shut up about wishing he’d gone with her…
He soon gets the chance. Spanning April 11th through July 6th 1929, ‘Kandelabra’ became the most significant sequence in the strip’s history: introducing Captain Easy in a riotous, rousing Ruritanian epic which we join after Wash reunites with Jada in the postage stamp kingdom she had been so cruelly stolen from.
Our little go-getter infiltrates the government and rises to the rank of admiral of the landlocked realm before overplaying his hand and beingframed for stealing the army’s payroll. Delivered to a secret dungeon he (partially) escapes and finds a gruff fellow American who refuses to share his name but insists on being called “Easy”…
Busting out his new ally, Wash and the stranger are soon caught in a bloody revolution when the aggrieved army mutinies. Before long the Vizier’s cronies are ousted, the vile villain accidentally orchestrates his own demise and regally restored Jada declares the birth of the continent’s newest democracy…
In ‘Desert Island’ (February 6th – June 7th 1930) Bull Dawson returns to steal Tubbs’ entire fortune, and flies off across America in a bid to escape with his ill-gotten gains. The robbery becomes a nationwide sensation and we join the action as Wash & Easy pursue the fugitive. Tracking Dawson to San Francisco, they continue the chase as the malign mariner takes off in a schooner with our heroes first stowaways and, before long, prisoners…
The sadistic Bull lose face after being thrashed in a no-holds barred fight with Easy, which was mere subterfuge to allow the southern soldier of fortune to pick Dawson’s pocket and recover Wash’s easily portable $200,000 in cash. As the battered thug recuperates, the vessel is hit by a monster typhoon which apparently leaves our heroes sole survivors aboard shattered shards of the schooner.
The wreck fetches up on a desolate Pacific atoll where the boys soon fall into the routine of latter-day Robinson Crusoes. The isolated idyll becomes cruelly complicated when they find the place is already home to a young woman who was the only survivor of an attack by roving headhunters from Borneo. Mary Milton is brave, competent and beautiful and before long the lonely pals are fierce rivals for her affections…
The situation grows dangerously intense and only stabilises when the savages return, forcing the warring suitors to stand together or fall separately…
I think it’s about time that I remind everyone that these stories were crafted a long time ago for audiences with far less progressive ideas than us. There’s no deliberate intention to belittle or deride, but these lovely pages are certainly piled high with outdated assumptions and behaviour. If you are unable to forgive or set aside such treatment, please give this book a miss.
When the brutal battle ends, the westerners are in possession of a sturdy war canoe and opt to risk their lives on an epic ocean odyssey to the nearest outpost of civilisation. It’s only after the voyagers are far out to sea that Wash agonisingly recalls that he left his stash of dollars behind…
The next adventure (running from June 9th – October 1930) immediately follows on, with the weary travellers reaching French Indo-China and, thanks to a friendly soldier, escaping far inland via a mighty river. After days of travel they reach the previously hidden kingdom of Cucumbria and fall foul of the toad-worshipping emperor Igbay Umbay who takes one look at Mary and decides he has to have her…
Being a coward who stole the throne from his brother, this Grand Poobah hasn’t the nerve to simply take her, and so orchestrates a succession of scurvy schemes to get rid of Wash and Easy. Naturally, the boys are too smart and bold to fall for them.
Infuriatingly rising in power and status, aided by young prince Hilo Casino – freshly returned from college in America – the Americans finally seem be out of Umbay’s hair after they agree to lead his armies against supernatural rebel leader ‘The Phantom King’…
Despite deep misgivings “General” Easy and his aide Washington Tubbs embark upon a campaign that will ravage the hidden kingdom, unseat an emperor, cost thousands of lives and lose them the girl they both love…
A year later, ‘Down on the Bayou’ (March 12th to July 25th 1931) found the world-weary wanderers nearing home again, only to be arrested as they approach New Orleans in a stolen plane. They were fleeing a clever frame-up in infamous Costa Grande, but without any proof could only evade their US Navy captors and flee into the swampy vastness of the Mississippi Delta…
Lost for days and starving, they are picked up by vivacious gangster’s moll Jean who recruits them into a gang of smugglers and rum-runners who inhabit a huge plantation somewhere between Pelican Island and Barataria, dedicated to various criminal enterprises. Tubbs & Easy soon comfortably settle in amidst the rogues and outcasts, but everything changes when Jean’s brother returns from a smuggling trip. His name is Bull Dawson…
He is prevented from killing our heroes by Jean and the huge Cajun in charge of the outlaw outpost, but takes it badly. With his gang of deadly bodyguards in tow, Bull decides to take over the whole enterprise. A couple of murders later he’s big boss, but also oddly friendly to his most despised enemies.
Maybe it’s a ploy to put them off guard, or perhaps it has more to do with the gang of Chicago mobsters who have come down South, to put an end to the bootlegging mavericks cutting into their profits…
The troubles and bloodshed escalate exponentially and Jean drops her final bombshell: she’s a federal agent working with the Coast Guard to smash the budding criminal empire!
Once the dust settles she has one final surprise in store. In all the years of their friendship Wash could never get his taciturn pal to talk of his past or even reveal his real name. Now the government girl gives Mr. William Lee a message which sends him rushing across country to an old plantation home. Here the astounded Wash hears all about his pal’s shocking life, sordid scandals and abandoned wife… and then he learns the whole truth…
Soon, the impediments and lies which blighted Easy’s life are all removed and the wanderer settles in to a well-deserved retirement with the girl he always loved but could never have. Tubbs moves on, quickly reuniting with old chum Gozy Gallup…
Some weeks later, ever-restless Wash is riding a tramp steamer headed for Europe, intent on paying Jada a visit in Kandelabra but – falling foul of rustic transportation systems – ends up in the similar but so different Principality of Sneezia…
Apart from pretty girls, the tiny kingdom has only one point of interest: the world’s dinkiest railway service. Run by aged expatriate American Calliope Simpson, ‘The Transalpina Express’ (August 13th – November 21st 1931) links Sneezia to sister kingdom Belchia and is the most unique and beloved (by its intoxicated customers at least) service in the world.
Wash is especially keen to learn the business, since being the engineer has made octogenarian Cal the most irresistible man in two countries, fighting off adorable young women with a stick…
Someone’s greatest dream comes true when Simpson finally elopes with one of his adoring devotees and Washington Tubbs become sole operator of the Express, but his joy at all the feminine attention soon sours when Belchia and Sneezia go to war, and both sides want to use his train to move men and material into combat. Of course, the dilemma can only end in disaster and before long our boy is running for his life again…
There’s a big jump to the next yarn which finds Wash and Easy reunited and stowing away on the wrong-est ship imaginable. Quickly caught, they are understandably assumed to be part of the contingent of prisoners bound for the final destination – ‘Devils Island’ (June 9th to August 30th 1932)…
No sooner are they mixed in with the hopeless prison population than the planning of their inevitable escape begins. However, success only leads to greater peril as they and their criminal confederates take ship with a greedy captain subject to murderous bouts of paranoia and madness…
‘Whales’ (April 24th – August 30th 1933) is probably the most shocking to modern sensibilities of the perennial wanderers’ exploits. Here Wash & Easy are drugged in a Dutch cafe and dumped aboard one of the last sailing ships to work the whaling trade. Elderly and nostalgic Captain Folly has been convinced by psychotic First Mate Mr. Slugg to compete one last time against the new-fangled factory whaling fleets, unknowingly crewing his creaking old ship with shanghaied strangers…
The grim minutiae of the ghastly profession are scrupulously detailed as our heroes seek some means of escape, but with Slugg becoming increasingly unbalanced – and eventually murdering Folly – bloody mutiny leads to the ship foundering. Both factions – or at least the survivors of each – are subsequently marooned on arctic Alaskan ice, where (naturally) our heroes find the only pretty girl in a thousand square miles…
This fabulous treasury of thrills concludes with one last battle against Bull Dawson after the incorrigible monster links up with gorgeous grifter Peggy Lake, who fleeces gullible Wash of his savings and disappears into the endless green wilderness of the swamps of ‘Okefenokee’ (June 13th – July 24th 1935).
The crime leads to a massive police manhunt through the mire before the boys personally track down the villains and deliver one more sound thrashing to the malodorous malcontent and his pretty patsy…
Rounding off this superb collection is a thorough ‘Captain Easy and Wash Tubbs Episode Guide’ by Rick Norwood, a glorious graphic Mexican travelogue feature by Crane in ‘An Afterword in Pictures’ and informative biography section ‘About the Authors’…
If I’ve given the impression that this has all been grim and gritty turmoil and drama thus far, please forgive me: Crane was a superbly irrepressible gag-man and his boisterous, enchanting serials resonate with breezy, light-hearted banter, hilarious situations and outright farce – a sure-fire formula modern cinema directors plunder to this day.
Easy was the Indiana Jones, Flynn (The Librarian) Carsen and Jack (Romancing the Stone) Cotton of his day – and, clearly blazed a trail for all of them – whilst Wash was akin to Danny Kaye or our own Norman Wisdom: brave, big-hearted, well-meaning, clay-footed, irrepressible and utterly indomitable everymen… just like all of us.
This superb monochrome landscape hardback (274 x 33 x 224 mm) is a wonderful means of discovering or rediscovering Crane’s rip-snorting, pulse-pounding, exotically racy adventure trailblazer.
This is comics storytelling of the very highest quality: unforgettable, spectacular and utterly irresistible. These tales rank alongside her best of Hergé, Tezuka and Kirby, irrefutably informing the creations of all of them. These strips inspired the giants of our art form. How can you possibly resist?
Hurricane Isle: The Best of Captain Easy and Wash Tubbs © 2015 Fantagraphics Books. All Wash Tubbs and Captain Easy Strips © 2015 United Features Syndicate, Inc. All other material © the respective copyright holders. All rights reserved.